Corucia not eating, advice badly needed!

Hi, I have 1.1 Corucia zebrata. For the past couple of months, they have not been eating well. I recently moved to a new house, with poor insulation, and in a colder area than I came from. My heaters were enough in my old place, but apparently they are not enough for my new place. I have the temperatures back when they should be with the addition of another heat source. I thought once the temperature was back up, they would start eating again, but they have not. I offer food every day. My male occasionally takes a couple of bites, mainly fruit. I also have pothos plants in their cage. They do feed on the pothos, but not very much. In a given night, they may eat one or two pothos leaves, then not eat anything for two or more days. The past couple of weeks, I have resorted to syringe feeding a couple of times a week. I put greens, veggies, a little fruit(to make the mixture more palatable), and a multivitamin supplement into a blender with an equal portion of water. I mainly did this because my female is at least 5 months gravid, and I was worried about the baby. I thought the fact that she is gravid might be another factor in why she isn't eating, but I can't see why my male isn't eating either. They seem to like the syringe feeding, and I feel better that they are getting something in their stomachs. They just lap it up, right out of the syringe, and they eat quite a bit of food. While I am glad they are getting some food, I am at a loss to why they won't eat on their own. I did take them to vet, and the vet said they looked healthy, although my male was a little skinny in the pelvic region. I wanted to do a fecal at that vet visit, but could not get my skinks to produce any stool. I plan on taking in a fecal sample within the next couple of days, or whenever I can get a sample. I don't think it is a parasitic infestation, but I just want to make sure. The vet said they would have to mix the stool from both my skinks to have enough for a fecal smear(to check for protozoa) and a fecal float(to check for worms). I am getting some new food items delivered from a company that specializes in food for herbivorous reptiles tomorrow or the next day in hope that they will produce a feeding response. The items include dandelion greens, mixed veggies, berries, and mulberry leaves. The mulberry leaves are the one item I am hoping will make them eat because my male was literally raised on mulberry leaves. If anyone has any ideas, advice, or suggestions, please let me know. Thank you all for you help. Josh

Hi Josh- have you tried warm soaks? If they are eating from your hand, thats a good sign, I would keep it up until you see them eating on their own. I have had some major successes with dandelion greens, papaya, mango, frozen squash, yams and pumpkin from a can (not pumpkin pie mix, just plain pumpkin). If you can get a feeding response from any of these, you can start to mix in leafy greens chopped up so they don't notice and increase until back to regular diet. This is probably a response to the lower temps, give them some time to get used to their new digs, and the new temps. These are tough lizards, they should bounce back with your attention. Keep us posted.

I have had some who stopped eating when I first got them, and I suspect that (some of them at least) are very sensitive to changes in their environment. In two cases, I got them eating by hand-feeding them (bananas, green beans, peas, sweet potato baby food -- I offered a variety of yummy things to entice them), and they started eating again by themselves after several days -- I *think* once they got used to their new surroundings and the new smells. In a third case (a very elderly female), she was sickly, and showed signs of respiratory infection. In her case, I also gave her tetracycline twice a day (aquarium tablets dissolved in water, squirted into her mouth with a syringe), in addition to the hand feeding. She pulled through after a week or two.

The females *do* seem to go off their feed later in their pregnancies (one of the ways I can tell when they've given birth is that they are suddenly ravenous again!). And all of mine are turning up their noses at food right now, and I suspect they just do this every winter when the days are shortest. Also, we have had a sudden cold snap, and the temperatures may be not to their liking and the humidity is probably somewhat lower because I have the heater running full blast... (despite frequent misting and vaporizers running continuously).

As long as they do not have a nasal discharge (or noisy breathing), and they are not losing a lot of weight, I would not get too worried yet. Especially if they are eating when hand fed. As for the fecal, I always figure any skinks housed together probably all have the same gut bacteria and parasites already anyway, so mixing feces from both to provide a sample should be representative. (Remember, they *are* supposed to have some gut bacteria to help digest their food).

I assume you have UV-B basking lamps for them? No one has established a need for UV-B with these guys (that I know of), but it never hurts to give reptiles a warm spot to bask in...

Sounds like you are doing everything right. Good luck! And try to stay calm! :-)

-- Celeste

Hi Josh,
I also have a 1.1 pair. My female is about 28 weeks gravid now. Her eating has really slowed down over the past several weeks. My male has also slowed, but eats more than my female. My temps have remained good, and they too do not eat as much. My female will also take food from my hand as well. I have assumed that this is due to the season and shorter days as well as birth right around the corner. Everyone acts normal and appears healthy. I will post when my pair's appetite picks up again.

Karen